What's wrong with people? :P

[Absaroka]

Lets not lump all rednecks together, or all folks with a 6th grade education together. Some of them are good people. And some of them are crossdressers. There are at least a few folks here with conservative beliefs about everything except crossdressing.

Zari

[Gillian]

To exaggerate the point I was taking some artist liberties. No offence intended toward rednecks, or to those of lesser education. I guess I have spent to many years dealing with to many "knuckle draggers" and their prejudices. I have learned that "jerks" know no race, religion, color, or creed. The only thing that seems to be common is ignorance and a lack of desire to learn something new. That is to me the real issue when it comes to,"what is wrong with people". I apologize for my pigeon holing the innocent into the same box.

[Carolynn]

I agree with Anne that some of the lashing out is promoted by fear, and perhaps some of it may come from seeing secret fantasies being out there by others. Many more males perceive crossdressers and openly gay men with a lot of disquiet, and I wonder if they "doth protest too much", while most women are less bothered. One of the most outspoken anti-gay men I have been acquainted with later came out of the closet, and Barney Frank was outspokenly anti-guy until he was outed. "tis the nature of the beast, perhaps.


Carolynn

[Susan]

Carolyn

I think you have made a great point. Lets get a few of these bigots to swear on the bible that that are not what they are railing against. Should be interesting I think.

Regards

[Absaroka]

Carolyn you hit a nail right on the head.

Of course we are dealing with a whole construction project, with lots of nails. But I think you are very right.

Zari

[Bernice]

Lets not lump all rednecks together, or all folks with a 6th grade education together. Some of them are good people.

Good point Zari!

I fear I was about to jump on the stereotyping bandwagon myself until you put my brain back in gear.

I was going to say that public Internet forums tend to attract opinionated vocal bigots (perhaps put even more colorfully). Upon reflection, I guess that public Internet forums tend to attract people who are more judgmental than normal. Prime people with the notion that someone did something wrong, and watch people pile on the criticism and dream up new far-fetched conclusions. It isn't a very pretty human behavior.

Take for example the fellow who Kamikazied his plane into the IRS building in Austin Texas. No, I don't endorse his actions. However, forums were full of people calling him lunatic, crazy, stupid, moron, idiot, spastic, dumb, commie, gay, fag, bipolar, baby-killer, child-molester, and anything else derogatory that they could think of. Some of them went on to project those visualizations onto anyone who chooses to pilot any aircraft anywhere. I felt that it was perhaps better for him that he didn't survive, because with people like those on his jury, he would never have gotten a fair trial. The truth is that we fail to learn from such horrific events when we fail to examine the evidence of what drove a human being to exhibit such extreme anti-social behavior. I also read his web posting, before it was hastily removed for mysterious reasons. Whatever they say, he clearly wasn't stupid, and perhaps he wasn't even crazy. Government reaction will surely involve more oppressive regulation of pilots who are not at all desperate, and totally fail to address what made this particular individual take such desperate actions in the first place.

I've adopted a personal goal to be less judgmental now, and in the future. Not everyone in the world has joined me - yet.

Hugs,

Bernice

[Absaroka]

Perhaps it's a good time to remember what the term redneck means. It's merely a lower class white person who works outdoors in the South, hence the sunburned red back of the neck.

It's come to mean someone closeminded because they were tricked by the ruling class in the South to think that their enemies were black people rather than the rich whites who exploited them economically. But to automatically assume all lower class southern whites are bigots is bigotry.

Zari

[Minou]

Ultimately what makes the judging and ridicule possible is power politics that's related to sexism, racism etc. It allows those that confirm with main stream convention to exert power over those that don't. That is the mechanism that causes large parts of our societies to feel like victims. Not good, and probably the cause of many social ailments. We each have to do what we can to fight this mechanism _everywhere_ where we encounter it.

[DanteCarrie (FTM)]

true but it is ignorant to be swayed by illogical propaganda that has no basis in reality to believing something prejudiced. those who are easily swayed were prejudiced and illogical at heart and deserve no understanding and excuses made on their part. ridicule them back

[JoAnnDallas]

There have been many famous people that did not finish school. One that comes to mind is "Thomas Edison".

Also up til the 1920/1930's one could become a Doctor by going to Medical School. You did not have to have either a College Degree or even finish High School.